Bdellospora
BDELLOSPORA Drechsler, 1935 (Mycologia 27:25), 1 species (Drechsler, 1935).
Spores adhere to the host amoebae, produce an apically branched haustorium, and the spore swells to form the thallus. Reproducing asexually by the formation of erect or ascending fertile hyphae that produce multispored merosporangia. Spores more or less fusiform, with an irregular wall. Sexual reproduction occurs after conjugation of coiled, hypha-like suspensors, each of which arises from a separate thallus; zygospores with a warty zygosporangium. Possibly heterothallic.
Type species: B. helicoides
Species of Bdellospora:
B. helicoides Drechsler, 1935 (Mycologia 27:25) (Drechsler, 1935).
Bdellospora helicoides was unusual among the first Zoopagaceae described because the spore swells to become the thallus and only a haustorium is inside the host, Amoeba terricola sensu Penard (1912). Other characteristics of this species are that the merosporangia are multispored and the suspensors are coiled around one another many times (Drechsler, 1935).
Bibliography
Drechsler, C. 1935. Some conidial Phycomycetes destructive to terricolous amoebae. Mycologia 27:6-40.
Penard, E. 1912. Nouvelles recherches sur les amibes du groupe terricola. Archiv fur Protistenkunde 28:78-140.
Updated Nov 05, 2007
